


Seleya Journey

by Lt_Zoe_Jebkanto



Series: The Bonds Between Us [10]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M, Family Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-22 03:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2493530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lt_Zoe_Jebkanto/pseuds/Lt_Zoe_Jebkanto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had never held his baby daughter in life...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Across the Desert Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Asso](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asso/gifts).



> This is a sequel to "The Double Edge" (yeah, yeah, I know! I haven't submitted the whole story yet, I never could write things in strictly chronological order!) and a prequel (see what I mean?) to "As Easy As Breathing", though I don't think my crazy movement through time (only parelelled by the great Jean-Luc Picard) would keep this story from standing on its own. Thanks, by the way to Luck O'Tucker for the beta, and to my mentor, Mr. Bachman.

Chapter One

4 March, 2155  
Vulcan

They left for Mount Seleya as the dry desert winds blew away the strongest heat of the day. As T’Kuht rose, she painted the desert beyond the skimmer’s windows in muted shades of amber, apricot, deepest umber and palest gold. 

While T’Pol maneuvered the low flying craft above the rugged terrain, Trip gazed at the landscape and, under his breath, murmured the formal Vulcan words he’d spent half the journey from Earth trying to memorize in preparation for what lay ahead. 

“By this ritual, this um…? This…? Ritual is ho-rah, right? Wait, no… Divine… ritual? Ekon ho-rah… Damn, I thought I had it down pat this morning!”

He’d always hated public speaking! That was probably at least part of what had set the butterflies dancing in his gut, even though the ceremony was gonna be just about private. Usually he wasn’t bad at the memorizing part, but now, not only had the phrasing deserted him, even without Hoshi’s ear for languages, he knew the pronunciation still seemed off, not to mention the intonation and the grammar!

Oh, well, Vulcan spoken in the cadences of the Florida panhandle…! Go figure.

“Your intention,” T’Pol’s crisp, steady voice came from beside him. “Will speak louder than your articulation. Much of this, remember, will be conducted in the mind.”

“Right…” At least one butterfly left the dance as he dropped the attempt and concentrated instead on adjusting the high, stiff collar of his Vulcan robes.

He’d hesitated about wearing them, standing for what seemed like forever in front of the closet door, gazing at the long, flowing garments. 

Last time he wore them was on one of the most heart-grinding days of his life, as T’Pol and Koss exchanged marriage vows. That was a memory he didn’t want rekindled by the familiar smooth touch of the fabric, especially tonight when that same heart was aching with a fresh sense of the second impending loss of his beautiful little Elizabeth. 

Still, the robes had belonged to T’Pol’s father. They had been presented to him by her mother. There was unspoken compassion in T’Les’s dark eyes as she smoothed the fastenings at the front, then encouraged him to tell her daughter he was in love with her. 

God, he’d wanted to dash right out and do just that. 

T’Pol, I love you! Call off the damn wedding! Better yet, hey…? We’re all dressed up here already, so why not just walk on out there and marry me instead of him?

He hadn’t done that. 

How could T’Pol have sorted out what her best course would be when she was caught between the demands of Vulcan culture, tradition and politics? When she was press to honor the betrothal her parents arranged during her childhood? Was the intended target of the High Command’s sabotage of her mother’s university job? When joining Koss’s family, with their connections in Vulcan society could restore T’Les’s position there? 

But still… 

T’Pol, wait! That’s no reason to marry this guy! He scarcely knows you! And you hardly know him! Not enough to love him! And he doesn’t love you… Not like… 

Like I love you! 

A declaration like that would have added one more complication for her to deal with. So, he’d shaken his head and said T’Pol had too much on her plate already.

Something in T’Les’s discerning dark eyes hinted that she understood what lay beneath his words. That, much as it hurt to hold his silence, he loved her daughter too much to do anything else. Without either of them speaking about it, he recognized in the gentleness of T’Les’s touch as she made the final adjustments to his robes, that there was a new acceptance of him, human or not, as somebody who would have made a worthy son-in-law. 

Now, it seemed only right and fitting to wear the robes in her honor as well as in that of her granddaughter. 

Not that it did a single thing to make the tight, stiff collar any more comfortable. 

How long now until they reached Seleya? 

Sighing, he settled for running the phrases he’d soon be reciting through his mind rather than making any more tries at speaking them out loud.

In their English approximation, they were as formal as the robes, but somehow there was a solemn tenderness, a hope within the words that was kind of comforting. 

May your katra, your living spirit, be surrounded and nurtured by the boundless wisdom of the Universe…

He didn’t know all the subtle shades of meaning in the original Vulcan words, only that they had been almost unpronounceable. All he could do was pour as much love for his daughter into them as he could and hope he didn’t bungle the ones he would recite aloud in a way that rendered them meaningless. Or worse, ridiculous.

“You will do fine, Trip.” Again T’Pol’s voice came as a quiet reassurance from beside him.

Of course she’d sensed his apprehension and the heartache beneath it, like he did hers. He quirked a small, grateful smile in her direction. The ceremony ahead was supposed to be elegant, even serene. But it sure wasn’t gonna be easy. Not for either of them.

Turning a little in his seat, he reached out to touch her sleeve, intensifying the communication pouring through their bond.

We’ll both do all right, T’Pol. I’m here for you. Strong beside you, like you’ve been for me. We’ll bring each other through this. Bring our… our family… through this. 

It seemed to him that, even if it was not exactly delivered with the precision of words, the essence of his silent message was deeper than any language he ever knew, even though he understood their bond was still working its determined way toward completion. Its growth had gone un-nurtured for so many long, frustrating, often hurtful months before they’d both realized what the confusing connection between them was. They’d only begun to accept it, to explore…

…and to revel… how about to absolutely rejoice!…

…in it when they were confronted with the surprise of Elizabeth’s existence, her illness and, before they had almost any chance to delight in her birth, they had to face the inevitability of her death. Since then, while T’Pol carried the katra of their child, they had concentrated far less on sharpening their skills for detailed, specific communication than on the simple, steady assurance of their love for each other. For the sustaining strength it provided so that T’Pol’s deepest focus could be directed inward, to nurture Elizabeth until they could make this, their final journey together as what she had made them- a family.

Final. That was a damned painful word, even if where they were going, what they were doing, was a good thing. Even maybe a healing thing.

But it was gonna be so… Well, the word said it all, didn’t it? So… final!

Still, the comradeship of his touch had been enough to ease some of the tension thrumming through T’Pol’s body. The muscles beneath his hand relaxed as a returning wave of gratitude washed through him. Gratitude and… there was something more. 

Trip closed his eyes and, through their bond, looked at T’Pol. He’d sensed before that, far deeper than could be explained by logic, her very body grieved for the baby she’d never carried within her womb. But now he was awed by the depths of her sweet and fierce maternal protectiveness that had cocooned itself around the small, vague presence that was Elizabeth.

And around that cocoon, was a deep and somehow lonely sadness.

He wouldn’t presume to tell her he knew how she felt. Even within a bond there must be a respect for the privacy of the other person’s individual experience. Maybe especially there. But he could offer her the quiet of his company, so neither one of them would have to carry their sorrows alone.

I grieve with thee. 

Trip found her hand and circled it within his own. 

Even through the sadness, it was a real sweet thing, to be holding T’Pol’s hand! Real fine. Always had been, ever since the first time she’d allowed it. Even better when, like the time a few weeks back during a party at his folks’ house, she’d been the one to initiate that particular contact.

This time the sweetness was tinged with both relief and regret. 

The bulky numbness in his fingers was finally gone, taking (thank God!) that awful pins-and-needles prickle with it. The dragging pain in his shoulder had dimmed to little more than an occasional dull ache. He’d been free of both the sling and the neuro-stim band for close to a week and motion was starting to seem kind of natural again. The last time he’d seen Phlox about it, the doctor assured him the remaining aftereffects of the injury he’d sustained at Mars Colony were well on the way to disappearing altogether. 

But that injury… That damned injury…!

It was Phlox, himself the father to five children, that Trip had been able to express the deepest pain of it to. “I never got to do more than let her hold my finger through the glove insert in that damn incubator.” he’d said. “Between that awful little sterile box she was in and this shoulder injury, I never once got to carry her in my arms or rock her against my heart until she fell asleep…”

Never had. Never would.

Final journey. No, this wasn’t gonna be easy.

Sighing, Trip lifted his hand from T’Pol’s before the wave of regret could wash back across the bond to her. It looked like she wasn’t the only one whose body grieved for a child it had never carried.

But dwelling on it wouldn’t do any good right now. It sure as hell wouldn’t help T’Pol’s concentration as they skimmed over roughening terrain. Wouldn’t help them get through the ceremony. He’d better go back to centering his mind on his recitation again. 

“Ekon hoo…” he began. Then stalled. “Ekon…?”

Crap.

Or, maybe, so he wouldn’t over-think and end up scrambling the words any worse than he had moments ago, he should just focus on the harsh beauty of the landscape again, watch the light pouring down from T’Khut and see whether he could figure out which of the approaching mountains was Seleya.


	2. Light on the Hill

Chapter Two

 

His bones registered the shift in the engine’s vibration an instant before his ears caught its lowering pitch. Trip looked from the steep rise of the mountainside silhouetted against the T’Khut lit sky to T’Pol.

“We’re here,” she said as the skimmer settled onto the desert sands at its base and, a moment later, into silence.

“Where are we supposed to meet the…?” Trip’s words trailed away as he climbed from the skimmer and waded through deep shadows to meet T’Pol near the nose of the craft. He recalled the name of the person who would help T’Pol to guide Elizabeth’s katra to the Hall of Ancient Wisdom was T’Narra. But he wasn’t sure if he had her Vulcan title down quite right, any more than he was certain about how half the phrases he’d tried remembering during the ride would come out. Only that, on his and T’Pol’s behalf, Ambassador Soval had made the preliminary arrangements with her.

T’Pol’s footsteps crunched across sand. “Priestess will do,” she said. “Though her correct title would be reldai. I have never met her, however I understand she is a distant relative of my mother’s.” She turned to scan the darkness. “These are the designated coordinates for the meeting.”

Trip followed her gaze. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, something more like the easy and mostly casual churches of his childhood or the ancient and formal gathering place where T’Pol, her bridal veil shimmering on the Vulcan breeze, had exchanged marriage vows with Koss. Not this… large and awesome stillness. In the last heat of the day reflecting off the desert sand and mountain stone, Trip shivered. 

Above them on the slope, something glimmered. Not a reflection of T’Khut on pale rock, but the moving light of a single flaming torch. It came closer, slowed, then stilled.

“What do you seek here on Seleya?” The voice carried across the waiting night, ringing with the authority of ceremonial Vulcan.

Maybe he could not have pronounced them with such vibrant certainty, but Trip had studied the spoken language and meaning of the antiphonal responses, and knew the ritual had begun. 

“We,” T’Pol’s voice rose, as firm and clear as when she gaze commands on the bridge of Enterprise, but he’d never heard it resonate with such strength and power. “Seek to escort a katra to the Gates of Ancient Wisdom.” 

“Come forward.” The priestess raised her torch, illuminating a stone entrance carved amid craggy rocks. Trip had a momentary glimpse of high cheekbones and features as still and chiseled as the stone. She stood for only a moment, framed within the austere curve of the arch, then turned away, and without another word, beckoned them to follow. 

Nobody spoke. There was only the soft padding of footfalls and the rustle of robes as they walked through a narrow corridor that led deep into the side of the mountain. 

The last of the day’s leftover heat faded away behind them as they continued along one curving, sconce-lit passageway then another. It was not until they reached another higher, broader arch that their guide turned and indicated with a wordless gesture that they had reached their destination.

“You carry the katra,” she said, her voice low, throaty and formal as she approached T’Pol, inclining her head to her in a gesture of respect. 

“Yes,” T’Pol returned the gesture, her tone equally formal. “I am T’Pol. The katra I carry is that of my daughter.” 

The priestess turned to Trip. Her brow rose. “He is Human,” she said. Though they were directed at T’Pol, her words this time were spoken in clear and deliberate English. “Are our ceremonies now for Outworlders?”

Trip almost winced at the tone of undisguised offense, less because of the intentional use of a language she knew he would understand, than for the distain in her words as they had been directed at T’Pol for having included him in such an intimate Vulcan matter. 

He hadn’t forgotten the Human chromosomes he’d passed along to his daughter. But all of these arrangements had been for, and about, little Elizabeth T’Les. To honor the child, the love he and T’Pol had shared for her and the tender family bond the three of them had formed in only a few short, precious hours. 

Amid all Ambassador Soval’s arrangements, the journey with T’Pol to Vulcan and Trip’s intense study of this ritual, he had not considered that, while he was part of Elizabeth’s family, others might see only that he was not part of her mother’s world. 

“He is her father,” said T’Pol before Trip had time to find, let alone make a fitting response. He saw the lifting of her chin as she stepped closer to his side. “And he is… my bond-mate.”

She had never spoken the words aloud before. While Trip knew their bonding was not yet formalized or completed, in that moment, as T’Pol’s words rang with sureness and commitment, it had never seemed more within reach. 

Heart swelling with love and pride, Trip in turn stepped closer to T’Pol’s side.

The priestess, T’Narra, looked from one to the other. Her mouth was set in a hard line, her dark eyes steady and assessing. 

Damn it! She wasn’t going to keep him away from the transfer of his beloved daughter’s katra! Just because she didn’t approve of a Vulcan bonding with an Offworlder! Where was the justice… the logic… in that? 

He’d never had the chance to hold Elizabeth in life. No way was he going to be denied the chance to say a last goodbye to her! To have T’Pol’s heart torn at by having to defend his presence here when her attentions needed to be focused on Elizabeth. 

Besides, it did little good to argue with a Vulcan

Instead, he held his head a little higher, meeting the priestess’s austere look with his own resolute gaze, held both his silence and his ground as he raised questioning brows and waited for her disapproving gaze to find his. 

When it did, he allowed two, three, four long, motionless seconds to pass.

Okay, here goes. In Vulcan And whether she approves or not, spoken in the way Elizabeth’s Outworlder dad speaks it. In the cadence of the Florida panhandle!

He held her gaze, unblinking, then asked in tones of deliberate formality. “Since both Elizabeth’s parents are here, shall we start now?”

The priestess’s gaze waited, unblinking for another five, six seven seconds, before something in the set of her shoulders seemed to soften. She nodded, turned and beckoned   
them to follow her through the high, curving archway at the end of the passage.


	3. A Right of Choice

Chapter Three

A Right of Choice

 

For a moment, Trip thought the light ahead had all but vanished.

It took him two, three, four swift, squinting blinks to realize it hadn’t gone, just wasn’t casting close reflections on narrow confines of walls. Now it defused within a larger space as T’Narra stepped through the archway where the passage widened, turning aside as it angled to the left and became a huge underground chamber. 

The room must’ve been refined from an already existing cave, with sconces and statuary harmoniously crafted to disturb its naturally occurring walls, nooks and alcoves as little as possible. The overall impression was of stark and ancient austerity. Still, Trip found the place both beautiful and majestic, its almost harsh effect softened somewhat by torches burning orange-gold at intervals along the walls. 

What a crazy time to find himself wondering where the air came through from the surface to provide their steady oxygen supply! 

Through the glow, Trip watched T’Narra descend a wide set of steps whose curve followed the chamber’s wall. Never looking back, she reached the bottom and made her way across a broad, level expanse toward a pale, glimmering shape at the room’s centre. 

Good! She’d put a reasonable distance between herself and them. 

He closed his eyes, steeled himself.

He’d hoped the hardest part of the thought that had tugged at him off and on since Earth, and especially during the ride here in the skimmer, would give up and let go. 

Final journey as a family… Final…

For one heart-leaping moment, when T’Pol called him her bond-mate, he almost believed it had. Then he’d seen the hard set of the priestess’s mouth, recalled the disdain in her voice and her eyes as she pointedly referred to him as “Outworlder”. 

Okay, he’d heard himself called plenty of worse things over the years. A lot of them, half in languages he was glad Hoshi hadn’t been around to translate in detail for him. No big deal. But those words and their arrows had been directed at T’Pol. And for him, that was a big deal. A huge deal, having her take an unfair hit like that on his account. 

Did she realize that as long as they remained together, it sure wouldn’t be the last? 

If, that was, they remained together. If they decided to complete what had begun, all unsuspected, back there in the Expanse?

The issue wasn’t letting go. It was something they were gonna have to deal with after all. What T’Pol referred to as logic and he called common sense, said there was no point putting it off, ‘cause it sure as hell wasn’t gonna get any easier.

It was already tearing him up inside that they were about to lose Elizabeth a second time. But then, to think about how for him and T’Pol this might also be…

Their final journey as a family! 

How ironic it was that it could all end here, when so much had begun for T’Pol and him in another cave, light-years from here!

Their meeting with the priestess had turned the idea of “final” from being one born of simple grief to something more. To a rekindled awareness that had been eclipsed by the pain of loving and losing Elizabeth. T’Narra’s words “Outworlder”, “Human”, and the tone in her voice when she had addressed T’Pol, made it all to clear to him that, unlike on the day of her wedding to Koss, this time his love for T’Pol meant not keeping silent. 

And his words weren’t gonna be spoken for the ears of T’Narra.

Stopping before the first step, Trip turned to T’Pol. 

“Wait a minute.” Making no move to touch her, he leaned his back against the wall, drawing resolute strength from its solidity as he studied her face in the torchlight.

“Are you all right…?” she began, then took a step toward him. After a minute intake of breath, she continued. “Is your shoulder paining you?” 

The abrupt pause brought a brief, quirking smile to the corner of his mouth and a hard squeeze somewhere beneath his heart. 

God, how he loved her! 

He could almost hear it in her tone, in her inflection that, from force of long habit, she’d been about to call him “Commander”! 

But, like the sudden sharp press around his heart, that suggestion of a grin had been only reflex. No other part of him felt in the least like smiling now.

“No, it’s fine,” he reassured her with a small shrug that brought only an echo of protest. Then glancing downward in the direction the priestess had gone and checking to see she was not already returning for them, he continued. “I need to talk to you about something before we go any further.”

It would have been so much easier if he could have communicated his complex tangle of emotions through the bond without distressing the nurturing cocoon there that was holding Elizabeth’s katra. Could in turn have picked up the subtleties of T’Pol’s reactions through it.

Instead, he could only search for language and look at the tiny gold points of reflected torchlight in her large amber eyes as she waited.

Beautiful, so beautiful…

For his own sake, he almost said “never mind, it was nothing”. Almost turned and started down the steps after T’Narra. Drawing a deep breath, he forced himself to speak. The words were even harder than any of the formal Vulcan he’d been practicing earlier. 

“After Elizabeth’s katra travels through the Gates of Ancient Wisdom…”

T’Pol waited, not moving, not so much as raising a brow. 

“…there won’t be the family bond the three of us created.”

How was it anyway that he could give concise orders in Engineering, make clear reports at shipboard meetings, but flounder for words as he looked in those…

Beautiful, so beautiful!

…eyes?

“And it won’t be like it was at first, back on Enterprise. Like when we were discovering this thing between us.”

She didn’t blink. “Our bond.”

“Yeah. Our bond, our attraction… everything.” He sighed. “T’Pol, it was only us then. With no obligations to anybody out beyond the skin of that ship. Not even to Captain Archer, because we hadn’t quite figured out what we already were to each other or what we might become. Only that what was between us was…” Again the words pressed at his heart, almost choking him as he spoke them aloud. “…beautiful.” 

So beautiful!

“Then we got to Earth and there was Terra Prime, givin’ us our daughter, but all the time tearin’ apart the whole idea people like us should be anything to each other at all.”

“Trip…” she said.

 

Not even a suggestion of “commander” this time. 

She took another step closer. Her hand lifted in reassurance to touch his cheek.

“No!” he protested, even though the squeezing around his heart had become an expanding lump in his throat. 

Dammit! The last thing on Earth… or Vulcan… he wanted to do was evade that warm, sweet touch. 

“Let me finish!”

She nodded, allowed her hand to drop even though she did not retreat.

“I kept thinking, on the way here from Earth, that after we had the ceremony for Elizabeth, we could ask the priest or priestess to help us to complete, formalize, our own bond, that somehow we’d still go on together, be family to each other, but…” 

Frowning, he glanced down the stairs to where T’Narra was moving about the glimmering shape at the center of the room. It appeared to be a long table made from the same stone as the walls and floor. She had planted her torch in a sconce built into one end and was now placing a pale, fair-sized object on the flat surface beside it, but in the distant glow, he couldn’t make out what it was. Right now, it didn’t matter.

He turned back to T’Pol. “…after T’Narra’s reaction to me-” he began.

“Trip,” T’Pol’s voice was painfully close to a caress as she sent her own frowning glance toward T’Narra. “We have not spoken of it, but while it is tradition for a reldai to help couples achieve a mating bond at its deepest level through a guided meld, it is not, strictly speaking, a necessity. I also find her comments make her an undesirable choice for assisting us in that guidance. However, when we return to my mother’s house, you and I can…”

“T’Pol!” It was almost a groan.

Over the last months, he’d kept thinking about how much he loved her. Kept being amazed at how deep that love had grown, then discovered he loved her even more. 

He battled his way through the growing lump in his throat. “I remember how the High Command looked down on us Humans all through the years we were pressing forward with the NX Program, sayin’ how immature and emotional our species is. How often were you told stayin’ on Enterprise was havin’ a bad influence on you? I know there was a lot of support for you, for both of us, here, as well as on Earth, over Elizabeth’s death. Why not? We were innocent victims of Terra Prime! We hadn’t done anything, after all, except have our DNA stolen, then find ourselves actin’ like any parent would, by loving the child that was created from it. But, if you complete a bond with me… stay bonded with me now, without Elizabeth being the reason for it… you will be doing by choice something that will offend a lot of people on both our worlds. and face a future where many of them will consider you almost like a traitor to your species.” 

He gestured toward where T’Narra was settling a second object on the table. “I’m even talkin’ about those, like her, from inside your own family.”

The glance T’Pol sent in T’Narra’s direction was brief, distracted, before it returned to Trip. “T’Narra is only from a very distant part of my family. Are you saying that once Elizabeth’s katra has begun its journey, you wish T’Narra to sever what bonding has already developed between us?” 

There was no hint of surprise in her question. Only the smallest note of wariness. Maybe of old pain. He wondered whether any ears other than his would have caught it. Had T’Pol been carrying his same concerns about them? Had that been the sadness he’d sensed surrounding the place where Elizabeth’s katra rested within her?

For himself, he could care less what people believed about his relationship with T’Pol. He knew the truth of what they were becoming together. Understood the wonder, the beauty, companionship and- damn it, yes! -the fun that they shared. But to have her subjected to days, months, years of snubs or slights, to have her career damaged, her brilliant mind denied the opportunities to grow and contribute as it deserved on account of their love for each other? On account of him? That was something else entirely. 

He loved her too much to stand by and simply let that happen without making certain she knew the nature of her choices.

She was waiting for an answer.

In honor, he could say yes to her question. Say he wanted to sever the bond. That would release her from a potential lifetime of stigma or bigotry. But doing that would deny her a choice that really wasn’t his to make. Besides…

What he could not do was lie to her.

“No.” He met her eyes. Held her gaze. “The last thing I’d want is anything breaking up what we are to each other. But I wanted you to know I wouldn’t hold you… that you don’t owe it to me… to our past… or to Elizabeth to stay…” 

T’Pol did not wait for him to finish. “I believe that I, like you, have some idea of what difficulties we are facing, and that together we will navigate our life-course through them. I do not wish to have our bond severed either.” 

“That’s good then.” This time Trip didn’t resist the touch of her lifted hand. Instead he cupped his own hand over it, held it against his cheek and felt its comforting warmth against the edge of a small smile. Already a heartache loomed ahead that must be faced. But the strength of their bond would bring them through.

Releasing her hand, he started down the stone stairway. No echo of their mingled footfalls sounded within the cave, but even without looking, he knew she was at his side.  
“Let’s go see what we can do for our daughter.”


	4. Family

Chapter Four  
Family

T’Narra waited, erect and unblinking, at the far side of the stone table. On each end of it stood a beautifully carved vessel. Stone also, Trip guessed, his stride slowing as he gazed at them. Probably rock that also came from within the cave, but of a different variety. There was a translucence about them that suggested a quartz blend. Reluctant to disturb the stillness, he glanced at T’Pol, raised a brow, then lifted his hand in a questioning gesture. 

“The katric arks,” she said, close to his ear.

He nodded. It was what he’d suspected, from his readings during the trip from Earth, though the reality of them was far more elegant than what he’d imagined they would be. “Beautiful,” he murmured in return.

It was good, imagining Elizabeth’s katra being housed amid such beauty. He could picture those huge blue eyes of hers wide with a child’s curious wonder as the torchlight painted the ark’s surfaces in pale shades of oranges and golds.

Yeah, definitely quartz. 

Stepping closer, he examined a series of intricate figures carved across the glimmering surface of the nearer ark. Not simply designs, but writing. Trip couldn’t read all of the Vulcan words…

(he really should start an in depth study of both the spoken and written language) 

…but he made out at least enough of it to recognize the name of T’Les.

Katric ark.

He didn’t have to ask. Even if he couldn’t feel her presence…

She was here.

Elizabeth’s grandmother was here! 

Unmoving for the space of two, three, four heartbeats, Trip gazed at the beautiful vessel and found he was remembering large, deep-seeing dark eyes looking into his while nimble fingers adjusted the front of this same ceremonial robe and brushing away a phantom dust-mote or two. Something in the gentleness of that touch had conveyed a new and deeper acceptance of him, human or not, as somebody who would have made a worthy son-in-law.

Would touching the gleaming ark help him convey all he wanted to tell her, like they were in a meld together? Or would it be disrespectful, a sort of violation? In the end he settled for gazing at the glimmering surface and the symbols that formed her name. 

You know I didn’t rush outta the room that day to tell her my feelings, much as I wanted to, but now she knows. We both know, and somehow, I hope you’ll know too, how much we love each other. And, even though we won’t have a priestess there to speak the words over us, whatever happens to us from here on out, while you watch over your beautiful granddaughter tonight, her mother and I will be bonding ourselves to our future together…

With the faintest of smiles, he raised a slow hand to touch the smooth fabric of the wedding day robes. Adjusted the collar, almost like she had done. Good thing after all that he’d decided to wear it.

T’Narra resounding voice broke the stillness. 

“In the manner of Surak and of thy ancestors, from the time of our beginnings, have thee, through thy mental discipline and meditation, prepared to assist this katra on the first part of its journey through the Gates of Ancient Wisdom?” She intoned the initial words of the formal ceremony for the in-gathering of the katra.

“I have so prepared myself, by my mental disciplines, through my meditations…” Again, as it had on the mountainside, T’Pol’s voice filled the antiphonal response with richness and power. Ancient power, strong and protective. Loving power, for the katra that was Elizabeth. “To assist this katra, the katra of my daughter, Elizabeth T’Les as she approaches the Gates of Ancient Wisdom.”

Without any break in its rhythm, Trip took up the next line of the response, as if he and T’Pol had been speaking it in one voice. “By this ritual, I bestow blessings on this katra…” He realized he was shivering with emotion and that the back of his neck was trickling cold sweat as the meaning, the significance of the words surged through him. 

… This katra, this Elizabeth, this beloved little daughter…! 

He drew a deep breath and continued, his Vulcan slow, careful, as Florida-panhandle as ever, but without hesitation or stumble. “Blessings on the katra of my daughter, Elizabeth T’Les, on her venture, her undertaking and her journey.”

Amid the poignant words, he couldn’t help but be aware of more than a little relief. 

He’d done it! Gotten through the whole, entire thing in a manner worthy to do his little girl proud!

He glanced at T’Pol, watched her step forward for the next part of the rite.

T’Narra’s gaze met T’Pol’s. Her hand lifted, touched her cheek, searched the side of her face and remained there, motionless, After several long seconds, her eyelids drifted closed. When the priestess spoke, her tone was no less formal, but the power had given way to a sort of brisk gentleness. “Are thee ready to begin thy journey throughout the Profound Wisdoms of the Universe?”

She’s talking to Elizabeth! 

“I am…” As T’Narra assisted Elizabeth from the resting state of the disembodied katra into a conscious meld with her mother, T’Pol, her features softening, spoke on their daughter’s behalf. “…prepared to undertake my journey.”

“Thou two, mother and child, are now joined, one mind to one mind, two awarenesses becoming one mind together.” T’Narra’s hand remained, its touch light on T’Pol’s cheek. She was standing with her eyes closed, looking inward with something that was the faintest suggestion of a smile touching the corners of her mouth.

The priestess turned to Trip. Spoke briskly. “Does thee wish to enter into the meld with thy family?” 

“What?” Had he heard her right? 

To meld here and now? With both of them? With his beloved T’Pol? And with his beautiful little Elizabeth? What more could he wish for? But would that be possible for him, when he was no telepath? No Vulcan? Was what T’Narra herself had called an…

Before he could finished the though, T’Narra went on. “Though thee be Outworlder, as her father, it is thy right.” Some of the briskness dropped from her tone. “And thee has conducted thyself here with both dignity and respect for our rituals and traditions. I can open the door of the mind for thee. Thy…” for a moment she glanced toward T’Pol. “…bond-mate will be able to assist you to join her within the meld, while I inform T’Les to await her grandchild.”

“Thank you…” Trip managed in his careful Vulcan. But instead of addressing her by the traditional “Reldai”, he offered her the title of respect he’d been taught from his own earliest childhood. “I’d be honored by your assistance… Ma’am.” 

“Then we shall proceed.” T’Narra accepted the small tribute with a gracious inclination of her chin. Trip saw the hand not touching T’Pol’s cheek rising toward his own. There was the light, searching movement of warm fingers and then…

Everything went white.

Brilliant white. Dazzling white.

He’d been here before.

In every direction there was nothing but whiteness. No defined floor, ground, ceiling or sky. No sense of whether it came from a lamp or a sun. Only still and endless whiteness, gleaming with its own special vibrancy. 

No sense of time passing either.

Trip might have stood there for seconds or hours, scarcely wondering about the paradox of how he could tell he was standing without any sense of there being a surface beneath him. It hardly even surprised him that he could be so full of eager anticipation without it being strained by impatience.

When was the last time he’d felt so at ease? So peaceful?

He didn’t know. And it didn’t matter.

And then…

Was that a shimmer? A faint shadow stirring amid, somehow dissolving, the whiteness? Growing larger, closer? Taking on a suggestion of form? 

Yes! It was a figure. Faint, but growing clearer as it approached. At first little more than a silhouette amid the dazzle, it took on shape, solidity, then the subtle beginning of color as a voice- 

…a thought…?

-sounded in his-

…ears? His mind…?

“Trip?”

T’Pol took another step forward, then, pausing, looked up at him. There was no   
challenge in her beautiful amber gaze as there had been when he’d found himself here in the white space before, back during the time he’d served on Columbia. T’Pol did not order him to leave like she had then, but raised one arm to beckon him nearer.

In the other, she cradled Elizabeth.

There was no sign of illness now. The baby’s eyes were bright with curiosity as she looked at him. He was aware that he was all but glowing with smiles.

Beautiful… So beautiful…!

In this meeting of minds, he could sense the growing connection of being a family that the three of them had only begun to form in their few hours together before Elizabeth’s death. Now, being with them here, it was as if that growth had never been interrupted. Their presence was so vivid, the time spent sitting beside the incubator seemed distant and dreamlike by comparison. This was the reality. This was their bond. Even if this bright solidity of this moment only lasted for a brief time, it outweighed the sadness that was the separation to come.

Because, something far within him was realizing, in the deepest sense, there would really be no true separation.

T’Pol was so close now that, if he raised his hand, he knew he could touch her cheek and feel the vibrant warmth of her skin, the silkiness of her shining cap of hair. 

Then his gaze shifted back to Elizabeth, snuggled safe and well against her mother’s breast, but with those wide blue eyes lifted to meet his.

He stepped forward, his eager voice coming out soft, little more than a whisper.

“May I?”

“Of course. You are her father.”

Leaning forward, Trip brushed T’Pol’s forehead with his lips, then gathered Elizabeth up into his arms, cradled her head against his shoulder and, rocking gently, began to sing her a lullaby.


End file.
